CHAPTER XLI.REHEARSING THE PAST.
Star arose as she addressed her thus, and with the act all her pride arose as well.
“Yes,” she said, speaking with cold politeness. “I suppose you are surprised; you did not expect to meet me here, Miss—Lady Carrol.”
Josephine’s face lighted at those last words, and a wicked gleam leaped into her black eyes.
“No, I did not,” she returned, trying to call a happy smile to her false lips. “And—and—you have heard, then?” and, dropping her darkly fringed lids as if in confusion, she played with some flowers which she held in her hands, and looked the modest bride to perfection at being addressed by the title she had so lately assumed.
“Yes, I have heard of—or at least I saw your marriage in apaper which was sent me recently,” Star answered, trying hard to steady her voice, and resolving that the girl who hated her so should not suspect the torture she was enduring.
But Josephine did suspect it, and was determined not to let her go without wringing her heart with something of the agony which she had suffered.
Lord Carrol had dared to tell her, in the midst of her humiliation, that he loved Star, and she was bound to be revenged in some way for it.
She had sent her the CheshireGazette, even as Star had mistrusted, but she had not expected to get any such satisfaction as this out of it.
She had been down to the American Legation and found out where Mr. Rosevelt was stopping, and then had marked that paragraph and mailed that paper to Star, just to arouse her jealousy and show her that she had been a guest in Lord Carrol’s home for a week.
It had never entered her head that she would only read the notice of that mock marriage, and believe it real, not observing that it was connected with the remainder of the article describing Lady Sherbrooke’s ball.
But she now saw that such was the case. Star believed that she was really Lady Carrol; and she knew something of what she must be suffering on account of it, and with a sense of cruel exultation she resolved to give the wheels of the rack that she was on another vigorous turn.
She felt that the lovers would without doubt meet before long—perhaps that very evening, for she had seen his lordship there only a short time previous to this meeting, and she was assured he would waste no time in coming to an understanding with Star; but now, while she had her in her clutches, she would make the most of her opportunity.
“I presume it is something of a disappointment to you to find me here, and—and situated just as—I am, whenyousoconfidently expected to win his lordship,” sneered Josephine. “You perceive that it is not always safe to be too trusting, and a young peer, even though he were traveling under an assumed name, and made love to a pretty, poverty-stricken girl, to while away an idle hour, could not be expected to marry her.”
Star was very pale, but she was more than a match for the unfeeling girl in her proud beauty.
She stood like a tall and stately lily before her, and to all outward appearance she was no more moved by her scathing words than the snows on the peaks of lofty mountains are stirred by the fierce winds in the valley far below them.
“Lord Carrol did not travel under an assumed name. I have discovered that Sir Archibald Sherbrooke and Lord Carrol, of Carrolton, are one and the same,” Star replied, with cold dignity.
Josephine started, then remembering, said:
“Oh, of course; I forgot that both names were given in the notice of the marriage. But,” she went on, taking an intense delight in the torture she was sure she was inflicting, although her fair victim gave no sign, “you have no idea how lovely Cheshire House is—that is where the dowager Lady Sherbrooke lives; and Carrolton is even more delightful, I am told. We intend to go there before very long; but London is very gay just now, though it is out of season, and we are having such nice times that we prefer to remain here for the present.”
She glanced at Star angrily.
If she would but betray the least suffering, to show that she was wounded by this apparent triumph over her, she would have been content.
But she stood there, her graceful form proudly erect, her shining head thrown slightly back, her eyes fixed upon her face with an indifferent glance that galled her almost beyond endurance, while her manner was that of indulgent politeness, as ifshe were but listening, in a well-bred sort of way, to the babblings of a spoiled child.
“I presume you have heard,” she resumed, “that we came abroad to take possession of the estates of Sir Charles Thornton, whose death leaves mamma the nearest of kin, and therefore we shall all henceforth occupy a very high position in this country.”
“Indeed?” Star responded, as if it were a matter of no moment to her. “I have heard of Sir Charles Thornton, but I did not know that you were ‘nearest of kin’ to him.”
“Well, you know it now,” Josephine retorted, sharply, beginning to lose her temper at Star’s immobility; “and fortunately we can do exceedingly well without Uncle Jacob’s money, which you so cunningly managed to wheedle him out of. We shall not return to America, for we can enjoy so much more here among the nobility, where, as I told you before, our position is so high, and mineparticularly, you know, as—as Lady Carrol, is one to be rather envied.”
This last, she thought, must be a dagger in the fair girl’s breast, but she was wholly unprepared to have it turned against her own.
“May I take the liberty to ask Miss Richards what she means by the statements which she has made—to explain herself, if indeed that ispossible,” said a deep, stern voice just behind her.
Both girls started and turned instantly at the sound, and both uttered a cry—one of surprise, the other of dismay.
Lord Carrol himself stood in the door-way of the conservatory from which Josephine had entered, and through which he had passed on his way from another portion of the building back to the drawing-room.
He had seen Ralph Meredith and Mr. Rosevelt but a moment or two after Star slipped away. They told him that she was there, and he had instantly left them to seek her.
He had seen her standing there in the anteroom through the glass as he approached, and he recognized her instantly, although the sight had nearly unmanned him.
As he drew near, however, he heard Josephine’s voice, sharp and scoffing, and addressing the strangest words to her.
He stood still and listened, perfectly aghast at what she was saying, until he comprehended the whole situation; and, when she made that last amazing assertion, he could endure no more, and entered to confront her.
Star, with one look into his white set face, and a glance of astonishment from him to Josephine, whose countenance, for once in her life, expressed blankest dismay, sank back pale and shivering into the chair from which she had risen when Miss Richards addressed her.
That young lady felt for the moment as if she would like the ground to open and swallow her forever from sight.
But the situation was a desperate one—so desperate that she did not care for anything; so, quickly rallying, she tossed her dark head and retorted with a light laugh:
“Miss Gladstone was just telling me, my lord, that she had heard of my marriage, and I was only carrying out the joke a little further.”
“Iunderstandyou,” he said, briefly, but in accents of intense scorn.
Then, with a quick, eager step, he came between her and Star, who, with her white hands folded helplessly in her lap, her face like purest marble, felt as if earth was again slipping forever out of her reach, for her senses were reeling.
With a stern, authoritative gesture he motioned Josephine away, and, reaching down, he took Star’s hands in his.
“My darling,” he said, in low, thrilling tones, “has she been torturing you to death? There is not one word of truth in what she has told you. Come with me, and let me explain everything to you.”
A mocking laugh, which, however, was full of misery, rang through the room.
Lord Carrol looked back and saw Josephine, her face almost convulsed with pain and passion, passing out.
“Don’t think that it is going to be all clear sailing even now, my proud, spirited lord, for I will spoil it all if I can.”
“Come,” he murmured, gently turning again to Star, and paying no heed to those threatening words.
He drew her unresisting hand within his arm, and led her through the conservatory out upon a covered porch at the rear.
This porch was more like a room, for during the winter it was inclosed with glass windows, and, being heated with steam, formed a part of the hot-house.
He placed the fair girl in a chair in a secluded corner, and then he knelt down before her.
He took her hands again and drew them to his breast, where she could feel the great heart-throbs which made his strong frame quiver like a tree struck by the woodman’s ax.
“My darling,” he said again, “I have seen Mr. Rosevelt, and he told me that you were here. I have been looking for you everywhere during the last fifteen minutes. Dearest, you will let me defend myself now, will you not? You will not turn away from me—you will not spoil both our lives by again driving me from you, believing me to be a ‘traitor and coward?’”
Star shivered. Those words smote her with terrible pain; but her heart had been bounding with new hope since he had so sternly confronted Josephine Richards and proclaimed her assertion a lie.
She could not comprehend it, for she had read the notice of their marriage with her own eyes. Yet she instinctively trusted him, and it was so sweet, after all the miserable past, to havehim there, looking so fondly down into her eyes, and calling her his darling in those dear, familiar tones.
“Archie—Archie!” she murmured, with a sob, “I know all about it—you were never a traitor or a coward. I know you never deceived me, and I alone am guilty of a great wrong to you.”
With a low cry of joy he gathered her close in his arms, and laid her shining head upon his breast, calling her by every endearing name with which his heart was filled.
“You know all about it, my love? Who has told you?” he asked, surprised.
“Just one little sentence in a newspaper, which told me also that, when at the very moment I found you had been true, my life was to be a blank as long as I should live,” Star said, with unsteady voice and quivering lips. “I read,” she added “the notice of your marriage with Miss Richards in the CheshireGazette. These two names, Archibald Sherbrooke and Lord Carrol were printed there, and told me the whole story. I knew thenhowI had been deceived. But I cannot understand.”
She broke off suddenly, and drew herself away from him shivering and sick at heart again.
Surely that notice would never have been printed if he was not married, and she had no right to be thus in the arms of another woman’s husband.
She knew that he neither loved nor respected Josephine from the way he had addressed her; he called her Miss Richards, too, but it was a puzzle that she could not comprehend.
Lord Carrol read her thoughts, and saw by her white face how she was suffering, and he said, with infinite tenderness:
“My love, it was all a farce, a mock marriage planned by a wild and thoughtless girl, while I was chosen as one of theunfortunate victims and Miss Richards the other. Did you not read the description which followed that notice?”
“No; I read nothing but those horrible words, which told me of my own injustice, and that you and I would be parted forever. They burned themselves into my brain as if they had been branded there with a hot iron, and I cared to read no more.”
“If you had,” he returned, “you would have been undeceived; but I was very angry when I saw how the affair had been published, and if I could ascertain who wrote it up, I should be tempted to chastise the writer severely.”
Star was weeping now; great, glad tears of joy chased each other over her cheeks, and she did not resist him when he drew her into his arms again, wiping with his own hands the glittering drops as they fell, while in low, tender tones he told her all about the strange events which had conspired to separate them for so long.
“Will you forgive me, Archie? I was very hard upon you, but I was nearly mad with my misery that night when I refused to listen to you,” Star said, when the story was ended.
“Forgive you, my own? This moment compensates for everything. How were you to know that a titled relative had died, making me his heir, and changing or adding to my name? I was indeed Archibald Sherbrooke, bound for America, to travel and study art there, when we went on that steamer. I merely dropped the ‘Sir’ lest you should be shy of me. I did indeed know of the change in my circumstances when I next saw you in the station in New York, but in my fear of losing you, I resolved not to tell you until I had won you, feeling afraid that you, in your modesty, would refuse to Lord Carrol the love you would perhaps give to Archibald Sherbrooke. I never suspected, when I accepted Mrs. Richards’ invitation to visit her, that I was going into the very house where my own love dwelt. I had paid Miss Josephine someattention at Long Branch, but her mother was always included, and it was only in a friendly way, as I was drawn toward them from having discovered that they were of English descent, and connected with people here whom I knew. I intended, as I told you that night, to seek you the very next day; and when I had won the consent of your friends to an engagement with you, in the character of Archibald Sherbrooke, I was going to tell you of my real position in life. Now, dear, you know that I have never swerved from my allegiance to you. I have been as true as truth itself,” he concluded, smiling fondly down upon her.
“I have been very foolish, Archie,” Star whispered, “but, oh! I am very, very happy now. I was so utterly wretched this morning. I have been so wretched all day that it required all my courage to come here to-night; but I forced myself to do so because I did not wish Uncle Jacob to mistrust anything.”
“And I hear that my modest little Star has become a great heiress; she is no longer the quiet, retiring little maid whom I was so proud and happy to have won that day when we went to Coney Island,” Lord Carrol said, half regretfully.
Star lifted her head from his breast and looked at him inquiringly, and he thought rather more searchingly than the occasion required.
“I mean,” he explained, “that Mr. Meredith has told me that Mr. Rosevelt has adopted you as his heiress.”
She drew a long breath, but merely returned, in an absent way:
“Yes.”
“Mr. Meredith told me more, too, my darling,” her lover resumed; “he was the one who lifted the burden of sadness, caused by your sentence of banishment, from my heart. I imagined, also, although his confidence did not extend quite so far as this, that he had been my unsuccessful rival, and thatwas why you confessed what you did to him regarding your affection for me.”
“Did Mr. Meredith tell you that—” Star began, blushing crimson as she remembered what her confession had been.
“Yes, my beloved, and no hungry heart ever feasted upon sweeter words. They changed the whole future for me, and I was intending to start again for America in just three weeks, to search for the star of my life; the past has been very lonely and hopeless.”
“Yes, indeed,” Star returned, with a long sigh; “and yet,” she added, looking up with a smile, “I am glad that I am not to come to youquiteso empty-handed as you found me.”
“You surely do not regret the promise that you made me then?” Lord Carrol questioned, reproachfully.
“No; for it proves that you won me for myself alone; but now that I know you are a peer of England, it is a comfort to feel that no one can point the finger of scorn at me and say that you have chosen beneath you.”
He stopped her with a tender caress.
“No one should ever have said that to me with impunity, under any circumstances,” he rejoined, gravely.
They talked a long time, and everything was explained—all the events of the past rehearsed, all Josephine’s duplicity and hatred made known.
“She is a heartless woman—a most contemptible woman,” Lord Carrol said, with curling lips and stern brow; “and I deeply regret that she is to become a resident in England, as we shall doubtless be obliged to meet her in society. She has wronged you shamefully, my darling. However,” he added, with a luminous smile, “she considers that the ‘position of Lady Carrol will be an enviable one,’ and, sinceyouare to fill it, I think her punishment will not be a light one.”
Her punishmentwasto be no light one, buthehad no ideahowhumiliating it would be.
Another blissful half hour slipped unheeded by, and then he said:
“Come, dear; people will begin to wonder what has become of us, and besides, I want to introduce you to my mother and sister.”
He arose as he spoke, and drew her toward the conservatory, through which they must pass in order to regain the drawing-room.
“I have already seen your sister,” Star answered, with a bright smile, “and I began to love her immediately, and to mourn what I had lost in not having her formysister, too.”
“Sheisa dear girl, but I begin to think we shall not keep her with us very much longer,” Archie returned, with a regretful sigh.
“I thought so, too, when Mr. Meredith introduced her to me to-night,” Star said, archly.
“Ah! thenyouread the signs of the times,” he answered, smiling. “But here comes my mother, and she is looking for me, I know, by the expression of her face.”
They were just entering the drawing-room as he spoke, and Lady Sherbrooke was coming toward them, looking right and left for her son.
Her handsome face lighted as she saw him, and she quickened her steps, while she wondered at that new light in his eyes, at the bright and youthful expression on his face.
“Mother,” Archibald Sherbrooke said, and there was a proud ring in his tone, “I want to introduce to you Miss Gladstone, a friend whom I met while I was in America.”
Lady Sherbrooke shot a keen glance into that lovely, blushing face, and there came a look of surprise into her own, while for once she lost something of the graceful self-possession that was habitual to her as she greeted Star.
Her heart went forth to the young girl at once, and sheexperienced a shock akin to that which Vivien had felt when she met her.